Many changes are taking place in the way wireless communication networks are being deployed. Some of the changes are being driven by the adoption of new mobile communications standards. The introduction of software defined radios to wireless telecommunications has led to the generation of software and hardware solutions to meet the new standards. Current mobile communication standards introduce physical and logical channels and pose new issues in the transport of information within the communication networks.
A software defined radio (SDR) uses software for the modulation and demodulation of radio signals. The use of reprogrammable software allows key radio parameters, such as frequency and modulation protocols to be modified without the need to alter the underlying hardware of the system. Additionally, SDRs allow a single device to support multiple configurations which previously would have required multiple hardware devices. One example of a software defined radio is the Vanu Software Radio produced by Vanu, Inc. (See U.S. Pat. No. 6,654,428).
Some modulation standards that wireless communication networks operate with include, but are not limited to, Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS), code division multiple access (CDMA), Wide-band CDMA (WCDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD), Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN), and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM).
In standards that implement digital processing of voice and data communications, data streams typically carry digital samples of the voice and data communications in the form of digital words of a finite bit length and multiplex into a single data stream digital words comprising voice and data communications for several end users of the communications network. Often, a plurality of digital words is bundled together into groups to increase the processing efficiency of communications network systems. Because of this, various network systems must maintain synchronization to ensure agreement about which digital words in a data stream belong to the same group. Because of the various modulation standards currently in use for wireless networks, purchasing network system components designed to operate with only a single modulation standard results in idle resources at times when network demand for that modulation standard is low.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons stated below that will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art today for methods and systems that maintain data stream synchronization that are modulation standard independent.